Jennifer Aniston Flouts ‘Sweetheart’ Rep In Horrible Bosses

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Jennifer Aniston Flouts ‘Sweetheart’ Rep In Horrible Bosses

By Karen Malmquist

FINALLY, A WATCHABLE Jennifer Aniston movie. After years of seeing America’s Sweetheart being typecast as the lovable romantic comedy leading lady, she’s found a role that will give her the credit she’s always deserved: playing the bad guy.

In Horrible Bosses, out July 8, she proves that CAN play just as hard as the boys. It’s also a damn funny movie.

Very few comedies have come out in the past decade that do not have rom-com undertones, so Horrible Bosses is a breath of fresh air. The movie revolves around three average Joes (Jason Bateman, SNL’s Jason Sudeikis, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’‘s Charlie Day) driven to the edge by their bosses. One day the three conspire to off their tormentors one-by-one. Unfortunately, their well-meaning ways interfere. Bateman plays Nick Hendricks, who works for psychopath David Harken (a terrifying Kevin Spacey). Harken forces Hendricks to drink scotch in the early morning, calls him an alcoholic in front of the office, and then threatens him. The mind-mannered Hendricks is forced to sit back and take the hits as he fantasizes about throwing his boss out the window.

Sudeikis plays Kurt Buckman, working for cokehead Bobby Pellitt (an unrecognizable Colin Ferrell), who turns the office into his own person brothel when he inherits the business. Last but not least, Day plays Dale Arbus, a dental assistant working for Dr. Julia Harris (Aniston). Dale is happily engaged, but because he’s a registered sex offender (it’s a long story), Harris’s office is the only place that would hire him. That keeps him squarely under her thumb, and Dr. Harris constantly sexually harasses him, even while he’s under anesthesia during a procedure his first week on the job.

Dale has an extremely hard time convincing Nick and Kurt that he’s aggrieved in his position, even after revealing that the dentist has threatened to fire him if he does not have sex with her. Nick and Kurt tell him that he’s got it easy, since she’s hot.

The story turns into joke what would be tantamount to torture in real life. But Aniston’s character so unbelievably foul that it’s impossible to see her more than just a campy caricature of an out-of-control sex fiend. She successfully pulls it off because she is, in fact, just a character portrayed by America’s Sweetheart. The more she tries to seduce him, the more the audience cringes out of sheer discomfort.

The guys first conceive the idea of killing their bosses after a long night of drinking and commiserating about work environments. Although at first just a joke, Dale decides they need to take action after finding out his boss is blackmailing him. But their naivete quickly trips them up when they set about finding their hit men in the two worst possible ways: Craigslist, and then walking into an inner-city bar and asking the bartender if he knows anyone who kills people for money. After making several accidental racist comments to the bartender, you can’t help but feel sorry for them.

As the protagonists get themselves into deeper trouble, the funnier their misadventures get. While going from house to house in search of clues as to what they could use to kill their bosses, a misplaced stolen cell phone inadvertently causes one boss to kill another. Kurt’s DNA is found all over the crime scene because he had crudely wiped himself all over random items in the bathroom. And just as the sadsack workers face the evil Harken, Aniston’s nymph dentist Julia calls Dale from her bathtub, demanding that he talk dirty to her. The scene’s suspense erupts into laughter when Dale begins, screaming unspeakable things to her despite the three fearing for their lives.

Although it’s hard to say who the real scene-stealer is, Aniston delivers in the memorable role as sex-crazed dentist. Sure, Spacey plays a man possible scarier than his character in Seven or The Usual Suspects, but Aniston is refreshing as the horrible boss you love to hate, or more believably, America’s funniest sweetheart.

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Karen Malmquist is a junior at La Salle University, and the head writer and star of In Other News, a comedy series airing in Philadelphia.